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Could Miller Lite be revolutionary again?

12/18/2013

 


In January, Miller Lite's limited-edition can (shown here) arrives to remind everyone that there was a time, about 35 years ago, when the brand turned the beer world upside down.

The seventies were simpler days with a simpler beer market. Long before craft beers ever appeared, "full-flavor" premium beers--Budweiser, Miller High Life, and Coors Banquet--ruled unchallenged. 
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But then came Miller Lite and its revolutionary positioning based on product distinctiveness: Less filling, low-calorie beer with no sacrifice in taste. This seeming conflict was resolved in brilliant advertising using ex-athletes to dramatize--in masculine fashion--that Miller Lite delivered taste without filling you up.

These two commercials capture the joy of the legendary campaign.
Miller Lite launched itself on a trajectory unlike anything in the beer business up until that time.  

Now we're seeing this same sort of tumult again.

The craft beer phenomenon--collectively, a combination of a revolutionary product strategy and a similarly ground-breaking grassroots marketing strategy--has rocked the beer business to about the same extent (the volume impact is comparable) as Miller Lite did. Store shelves are now jammed with very full-flavor beers from hundreds of new breweries.
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When markets undergo revolutions, surprising opportunity can appear. Could it be knocking right now for Miller Lite? 

Might not today's craft beers serve as a timely point of comparison, not unlike premium beers were in the seventies?  A comparison that would favor the original light beer, just as it did back then. There wouldn't be much risk because Lite hasn't had a positioning for awhile, arguably since the one it launched with. And years of poor business trends now see the brand courting irrelevance and obscurity.

But it would take a revolutionary competitive idea. An idea the 
market hasn't heard. An idea perhaps a bit controversial. Yet an idea Lite's remaining loyalists would readily embrace, even as it drew in new customers.

Maybe most of all, an idea only Miller Lite could employ...

              (Click here to see the idea.)
                     
                      Sorry, old ad guys love "the reveal."


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    The Author

    Dan Fox is a real beer guy.

    For more than half his 30-year career at ad agency, Foote, Cone & Belding, he ran the Coors Brewing account. Leading a group of dozens of advertising professionals, Dan also personally wrote the Pete Coors "Somewhere near Golden, Colorado" commercials, designed the Coors NASCAR graphics, authored sales-convention speeches, and most important of all, formulated marketing strategy for virtually every Coors brand, including Coors Light, Keystone, Killian's Irish Red and more. His proudest achievement? "Our team had every Coors brand growing at once."

    Over his advertising career, Dan was personally involved in the analysis, planning and creation of thousands of ads for a variety of products and services. By way of this blog, he freely shares his expertise about what works, and what doesn't, when it comes to selling beer.

    If you're in the beer-marketing business--or just interested in the subject--you may want to read what "HeyBeerDan" has to say.

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